Life-Size Mouse Trap

Life-Size Mouse Trap

Artist and self-described "fungineer" Mark Perez has turned the classic Rube Goldberg‚Äìstyle board game Mousetrap into a larger-than-life traveling show. All of the game's original parts are here: an old bathtub, a diving board, and a two-ton safe as well as a car for smashing. The 16-piece contraption took Perez 13 years to pull together and requires two days of assembly at each new location. It weighs 50,000 pounds Look for it at the Maker Faire in San Mateo, Calif., each May, and others like it nationwide.

OK Go, "This Too Shall Pass"

OK Go, "This Too Shall Pass"

A creative collective of engineers, architects, roboticists, and NASA research scientists known as Syyn Labs are the minds behind OK Go's famed 2010 "This Too Shall Pass" video, which features an intricate Rube Goldberg contraption synchronized seamlessly with the song's beats and lyrics. According to Syyn Labs' president, Adam Sadowsky, the entire setup featured more working parts than a car engine, including a soccer ball that triggered a falling piano and a rolling tire that turned on a fan, which then blew an umbrella ... (you get the idea). While the 4-minute video was shot in single takes over two floors in an L.A. warehouse, and the contraption ran all the way through three times, there's one slight edit around the 2:20 mark for the sake of consistency. The entire video took about 60 takes to make. It has more than 40 million views on YouTube.